Category Archives: Film

Janet has just been appointed minister in the shadow cabinet – the crowning achievement of her political career. She and her husband Bill plan to celebrate this with a few close friends. The guests arrive at their home in London but the party takes an unexpected turn for the worse when Bill suddenly makes two explosive revelations that shock Janet and everyone present to the core. Love, friendships, political convictions and a whole way of life are now called into question. Underneath their cultivated liberal left-wing surface people are seething. Their dispute leads to the big guns being brought out – even in a literal sense.

For her eighth theatrical feature British director and screenwriter Sally Potter, who last took part in the Berlinale Competition with Rage in 2009, has invited a stellar cast to join her party. Beginning as a subtly witty comedy replete with sharp-tongued dialogue, the film later veers off into tragedy. When life can no longer be controlled by reason, people will fight tooth and nail to protect their seemingly stable existence.

The latest from Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan) profiles a family torn apart by a vicious divorce, in which the parents are more interested in starting their lives over with new partners than tending to their 12-year-old son.

Among the snowy high-rises of modern Moscow lives stocky salesman Boris and Zhenya, a youthful salon owner. Having migrated to shiny new partners, the couple’s relationship is coming to a bitter end and the fate of their 12-year-old son Alyosha is the last thing on their minds. When Alyosha goes missing without a trace, his parents can barely grieve in unison.

The thriller chronicles the mass break-out in 1983 of 38 prisoners from the Maze high security prison in Northern Ireland.

The film focuses on Larry Marley (Love/Hate’s Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), the chief architect of the escape, who strikes up a complex friendship with Gordon (Barry Ward), a prison warden.

Stephen Burke’s film works as a tense, exciting drama – there’s plenty of twists, scheming and unlikely allegiances as the inmates put together a complex, risky plan. But this also is a powerful piece of historical storytelling, highlighting the complex morality of the Troubles and exploring the motivations & beliefs of the various factions who have to live or work in the prison.

Vaughan-Lawlor and Ward both do a superb job here, and Burke’s script gives both characters plenty of space to develop. Their relationship is a fascinating mix of mutual respect and inherent hostility.

The Maze escape remains one of the most dramatic chapters in modern Irish & British history. This confident, accomplished film does the story justice.